Winning the mobile security battle

These days mobile technology is all around us in the workplace, with bring your own device (BYOD) just one of the main drivers for its adoption.

Apart from transforming the way we communicate with colleagues and clients, mobile technology has led to increased employee productivity and morale. It has improved teamwork and made our lives a lot more agile.

As a result, many businesses have started reviewing their internal IT policies to assess how and where mobile fits into the wider picture of customer and employee-facing strategies. While striking the right balance between employee requirements and corporate policy comes with many challenges, security should be a key priority when developing BYOD policies.

With security breaches becoming all-too-common, it has never been more important for companies to protect their corporate data from security bugs, mobile phone hacks and password leaks.

Stepping up your security game

One viable solution to beef up security within your organisation comes in the form of intelligent mobile device management (MDM). MDM enables companies to apply the same level of mobile security not only at a device level but also at the application and network tiers. This makes it much easier for IT departments to identify potential threats and adjust security risk levels accordingly. Another plus point of MDM is its ability to detect devices that don’t meet pre-determined security standards.

In addition, the “sandboxes feature” allows you to maintain a separation between corporate and personal data, ensuring sensitive data is kept within the control of the corporate environment. However, it’s vital to choose the correct device for setting up an MDM strategy – those that make technology simple and easy to use for IT managers and the workforce.

We can all imagine the potential panic amongst staff should a device be lost or stolen. Thankfully MDM provides IT departments with set measures for such a scenario, decommissioning at-risk devices in real-time. This could be a full wipe of the device or selective, removing corporate data and leaving personal data behind.

Leading the mobility charge

There’s already a trend at play of major enterprises placing a strong emphasis on the management of mobile devices. This holds particularly true for those with high security requirements, such as financial services and government organisations. On the other side of the spectrum, smaller organisations often opt for a more pragmatic approach with many yet to embrace MDM.

It’s clear that businesses need to pick up the pace to stay ahead of growing security risks. Whereas we will unlikely ever encounter a zero-risk situation, good preparation is the best damage control. Implementing an intelligent mobile MDM infrastructure to manage and avoid future obstacles provides a good foundation to face the mobile security battle head on.